Halloween Skeleton Wreath with Light Up LED Eyes

I apologize to the person who originally posted this idea somewhere in blog land. I made these wreaths last year and cannot find the link to the original idea.  My husband helped me tweak the concept so his eyes would light up!!

Found the original link - Meg from Mega Spooky. Here's a picture of her original wreath.

And here are pictures of my creation.

 

 

We begin with a bag of bones which can be purchased at any speciality costume shop. The bones are made of Styrofoam.  Now just arrange the bones in a circular pattern and glue them together! I laid the larger bones down first as a base and then used the smaller bones as connectors.  I tried every type of adhesive for the bones - speciality Styrofoam glue, monkey glue, and finally good ol' hot glue worked the best. 

This bag photo links to HSN which is selling them for $39!! I bought mine for under $10, but they were on sale.  I suggest waiting until after Halloween if they are super expensive!


 
We found these plastic light up masks at a costume shop for $5.

When opened, you can easily remove the LED lights and battery pack using an exact-o knife.

 My husband loves Liquids Nails and used that to glue the LED lights inside the foam skull of the wreath and attach the battery pack and a hanger to the back of the wreath.

TaDa! Don't you love his blinking eyes!

Linked up to

Eighteen25's 2011 Halloween Link Up Party

Polish the Stars Halloween Link Party
Somewhat Simple's Halloween Link Party
Craft Junkie Too -All Things Halloween Linky Party
Someday Crafts Halloween LInky PAR-TAY

Halloween Decorations

We finally finished decorating for Halloween at my mother's house.  Here are a few more pictures that I took with my cellphone (quality is not that good).  The pumpkin carving party is this weekend so I'll post more pictures next week.  For the life of me I can not remember from which magazines Mom found these ideas. 

Last year I made the skeleton wreaths.  I found the idea somewhere online.  My husband help me make a few modifications that made them really special.  Details to follow tomorrow.

We used a jigsaw to cut the signs from a really heavy cardboard from Lowe's, spray painted them and then painted the details. Some of the signs even got a coat of glitter

What a wonderful weekend

We had such beautiful weather this weekend. Saturday was may husband's birthday so I helped him paint the garage/shed floor.  And later Saturday evening we went to Acme for chargrilled oysters. Can you believe my husband ate 2 dozen chargrilled oysters?

Spent most of the day Sunday helping my Mom decorate her house for Halloween. These are just the preliminary decorating pictures.  Will post more next week after we complete all the different vignettes around the house.

This will be part of the graveyard outdoor scene

Thanksgiving SCORE!!!!

So it's been a long time since I've blogged...busy at work, blah, blah, blah.  But this was too exciting not to post - look what I just purchased for my Thanksgiving table!

Spode's Celebration

I can't tell you how excited I am.  I fell in love with this pattern a few years ago when I started hosting Thanksgiving.  I picked up a couple of salad plates off of ebay, but I had THE HARDEST time finding them.  I searched the internet, china replacement stores, and even had my Aunt (who works at a gift/china store in Lafayette) try to order research these plates.

Invitations have been ordered. Now it's time to start decorating my house for Thanksgiving and to start planning the menu. 

Quiet Book Sew Along - Week 2

Second week of  Stolen Moment's Quiet Book Sew Along. I'm working on two quiet books for Christmas

With my plan in hand, I started scouring the internet for templates.  There are so many wonderful ideas in cyber space!  I've gone crazy ordering items on Etsy.

I ordered the Colors Quiet Book kit from Turnbow Designs.  I started working on it last week.  I wanted to practice making a small book with all the pieces provided to me before I embarked on making 2 quiet books for Christmas.

It's turned out too cute! I still have to work on the flowers and sew a few more buttons on, but I'm leaning towards embroidering the flowers instead of trying to use my buttonhole on my sewing machine.  I can't get the buttonholes lined up in the middle of the flowers.

I've decided to embroider several of the designs.  I've found one embroidery designer that has several Bible Story quiet book pages.  I'm waiting to see if her designs will go on sale.  Another embroidery designer, Marge's Creations, has "paper" dolls.  I've ordered the Little Sister doll and she has a Little Brother design on her Yahoo Groups page that is free to download. Right now each doll/clothes design is 1/2 off! It was too good of a deal to pass up!

I cut all the pages out of muslin that I will need for the quiet books.

The Sew Along Schedule:

Fridays July 22nd-Sept 16th – Sharing Pages (this is 9 weeks for the pages of your quiet book, so for planning purposes you could take a week off, make one page a week, and have an 8 page quiet book. I’m planning on making a larger book, so will need to have a bit faster pace.)

Sept 22nd and Sept 30th – Construction and Reveal (putting the pages together and showing off the finished project)

I'm a bit behind but hope to complete the books by Sept 30th.

WIP Wednesday #9

Last week's goals:Current Projects:

1. Paris in the Fall BOM - FINISH the borders!!!
2. Cut pieces of dark fabric for Down and Across Quilt
3. Schedule time on long arm quilting machine for the Kaleidoscope and Carousel quilts
4. Finish Colors Quiet Book
5. Cut fabric pages for other Quiet Books
6. Order fabrics for Batik Swap

Finished Projects:
Fleece blanket for Nephew #1 - Dinosaurs
Fleece blanket for Nephew #2 - John Deere

Carousel Lap Quilt - I pieced the backing and am now ready to quilt.  Still need to book time on the quilting machine. 
Kaleidoscope Quilt Along - Piece backing and quilt
BOM Paris in the Fall Quilt - Piece backing and quilt

Down and Across Lap Quilt - Waiting on half yard of dark fabric to arrive - then I need to finish cutting the black borders and add the borders to the blocks.

I'm hoping to complete the quilts above before the Happy Hauntings BOM arrives in September.

Projects on my Radar
Happy Hauntings Block of the Month - should recive this BOM next month!
Merry Christmas Block of the Month - debating whether I should join the BOM.  It would be for my sister's family Christmas gift next year.  Guess I'll see how I'm doing on the HH BOM before I commit myself to this one too.
Postage Stamp Quilt Along
Blockapalooza




This week's goals:
1. Paris in the Fall BOM - piece quilt back and quilt
2. Cut pieces of dark fabric for Down and Across Quilt
3. Schedule time on long arm quilting machine for the Kaleidoscope, Carousel and Paris quilts
4. Finish Colors Quiet Book
5. Cut fabric pages for other Quiet Books
6. Ship batik fabrics for swap
Thanks to Lee at Freshly Pieced for hosting this Linky.  I feel more organized when I post my weekly progress.  Finishing these gifts for Christmas may actually happen this year!

Weekend

So how was everyone's weekend?  Too short? I had a great weekend. My replacement desk top arrived from Ikea Friday, so my husband and I put it together Friday evening. It's so nice to have a stable work surface

Of course Saturday was a morning of Garage Sales.  Got Christmas covered for my nieces - I found 2 cooking kits (includes spoons, rolling pins and cookbooks) for $5.  I'll put together a cooking basket for them and embroider aprons for them.  The plant lady was also having a sale again this weekend.  I picked up a few more plants - a morning glory tree, large leaf elephant ear, and a ginger plant.  We also purchased a couple dozen boiled crabs Saturday from Tony's Seafood.  They were incredible!  The full moon is this week and the crabs are full.  Makes me want to go buy a dozen more just thinking about them.

Sunday, we had a delicious brunch at Beausoleil Restaurant.  We just had to try their Bloody Mary - made with their own Bacon Infused Vodka. It was delicious with a very smoky flavor.



Yes, that is a piece of bacon in the glass



Hope you had an enjoyable weekend too.  Did you do anything fun? 

Have a great week at work!

April